By Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Posted: Thursday, June 14, 2001

EDITORIAL
Publication Date: June 14, 2001

A recent issue of the British medical journal The Lancet described the launching of a new Web-based data bank sponsored by the Naderite Center for Science in the Public Interest. The database, called the Integrity in Science project, aims to provide information on the financial links between specific scientists and organizations, and industry. CSPI maintains it is "concerned about the link between industry and science and how the demands of the former can undermine the public-interest mission of the latter."

Supporters of the Integrity project argue that it is value-neutral, serves only as a source of information, and has no pejorative implications for the credibility of the scientists who are listed in its "Ties to Industry" database.

This, of course, is ludicrous. Raising the issue of integrity in the very name of the Web page immediately brings up the question at hand: Are these scientists who accept industry funding as credible and as imbued with "integrity" as scientists who do not receive industry money? Clearly the Center for Science in the Public Interest had the answer in mind before it even created the Web site. Singling out industry-funded scientists for the world to see and scrutinize is what might be called a "scarlet letter" approach to separating the credible from the suspect.

There are at least four reasons the CSPI Integrity project is self-serving and hypocritical:

First, what matters in science is not funding, but the accuracy and legitimacy of the data generated and the conclusions drawn. The now defunct Tobacco Institute, funded by the industry, used to claim that it had never been "proven" that cigarette smoking causes human disease and death. Was this outfit credible? No, but not because it got its money from tobacco companies. If the Institute had been funded by the Easter Bunny, its pronouncements would still have been scientifically outrageous, because the controversy about cigarettes being the No. l cause of premature, preventable death had long ago disappeared.

Second, CSPI's focus on industry funding seems to suggest that there are not also potential biases associated with other forms of funding—for example, funding from government, private foundations and even consumer contributions. Government regulatory agencies need a steady stream of reasons (read: problems) to justify their existence. If the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency gives a group a grant to evaluate the environmental toxin de jour, might there be a bias toward pleasing the agency which was looking for data to justify the regulation of this chemical? Government agencies are not neutral, they are their own special interest groups.

Similarly, private foundations may not be neutral—at least ideologically. Interestingly, some of the foundations which have funded the work of CSPI, including the Babcock and Arca Foundations, are well known for activities which advance left-of-centre agendas. Further—and ironically—foundations that support CSPI and other nonprofit groups who target corporations as the source of all society's evils derived their fortunes from huge corporate profits. In the case of the Arca and Babcock Foundations, the corporate godfather was the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Why is an ideologically fueled foundation any less suspect as a potentially bias-inducing funding source than is a corporation?

Even consumer funding has potential to skew a group's work and credibility, as it is in the clear interest of the soliciting organization to create a need for its existence. In the case of CSPI, if consumers did not fear poisons and carcinogens in their food and did not perceive a need for "consumer protection," they would not be motivated to send cheques to CSPI. If industry money might skew results in favour of concluding, for example, that a food was safe, then the need for big bucks in direct mail sweeps might just as well bias results in favour of deeming the food supply hazardous to our health.

Third, the listing of industry ties to scientists as a means of alerting consumers to potential bias of the results of those scientists' work presumes that an individual's or group's funding is the only source of potential bias. Recently I prepared an editorial for a major newspaper arguing that there was no health basis for the EPA's demand that the General Electric company dredge the Hudson River to remove trace levels of PCBs—because PCBs in the river did not pose any hazard to human health. The editor asked if my organization received funding from GE (approximately l%-2% of ACSH's funding comes from GE) and asked that that disclosure be made in the piece. But I was not asked if I owned substantial amounts of GE stock. If the answer to that question had been "yes," would that not be more relevant to the question of possible bias than a relatively small contribution from GE to the organization I head up? Should we ask researchers about their own stock portfolios? And that of their spouses and parents as well?

There is potential bias which might be identified completely outside the financial arena. How far do we go with disclosure? If a researcher reports on AIDS data and policy, should we require that his sexual orientation be identified? If a scientist is evaluating policies related to affirmative action programs, should her race be identified? If a physician is reporting on the promising results of a new heart drug, should consumers be made aware that he has spent decades of his career trying to prove this drug safe and effective, and has a professional and emotional commitment to having the results come up positive so that he could feel his years of work have not been in vain?

The reality is that all of us in science have personal ideologies, unique goals, and agendas. Our work should be evaluated on its merits, not our funding. CSPI's database is just the tip of a much broader question: What is the effect of industry support on research credibility? The way to determine this is to examine the relevant science and methodology pertaining to the work being evaluated. What CSPI seems to be saying with their Integrity project is: You cannot disagree with us and be honest at the same time. If you disagree with CSPI, it must be because you are bought off, and here are the funding lists to prove it.

Many people over the years have asked us why more scientists do not step forward to unmask those pseudo-scientists who constantly terrify us about the quality of our food, air and water. Here is one good reason: Since nearly all scientists, either through consulting or university funding, directly or indirectly, receive grants from some corporation, at some time in their lives, they feel vulnerable to public humiliation by those throwing funding pies instead of addressing the science. Better to stay in the lab or classroom, they say.

We at ACSH invite our critics—the ones who claim that our food supply is contaminated, that we suffer from an industrially caused "cancer epidemic"—to step forward for real dialogue and debate, and drop the red herring of funding. The idea that scientists who are corporate advisors, or groups that take unrestricted industry funding, are by definition mouthpieces for commercial interests will only continue to chill free exchange because, effectively, only one side of the issue—the anti-industry side—is permitted the status of "credibility."

Source Notes:  
Canada's National Post's